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Tag: Ebola

  • Ebola: How to protect yourself during vacation

    Ebola: How to protect yourself during vacation

    Nigerians were less perturbed about the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa until July 20, 2014 when the first case of the deadly virus disease was recorded – no thanks to a Liberian, Patrick Sawyer who brought the disease to Nigeria.

    Sadly, the recent Ebola outbreak has become a worldwide concern. While some may believe the best response is to declare a state of emergency — some countries have already been put on a travel ban list – it’s virtually impossible to completely halt movement. Sometimes you’ve just got to go, and we get that. Which is why it’s important to know how to protect yourself from the virus while moving around. An Online Hotel Booking Portal, Jovago.com has put together some information on how to stay safe from Ebola while on a trip.

    Ebola – What Do We Know?

    • It’s a fast-acting virus which causes a hemorrhagic fever – this means it causes internal and external bleeding – and is transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids of infected people or animals (yes, animals)
    • Symptoms of the virus may appear anywhere from 2 to 21 days after exposure, but most commonly within 8-10 days
    • It has no cure or vaccine, yet
    • People who display early symptoms can only be treated for those symptoms with hopes of recovery
    • Thankfully, Ebola is not airborne and can only be spread by people who are already displaying severe symptoms of the virus – bleeding from the nose or mouth

    The average traveler should be at no risk, but that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t take precautions because you never really know.

    How to Protect Yourself?

    Simple measures can make the biggest difference

    • Always wash your hands with soap and only eat food cooked properly
    • Sanitize your environment and carry a hand sanitizer with you as well; the virus cannot survive disinfectants, direct sunlight, and heat
    • Avoid bodily contact with people on a trip, this one is nearly impossible, but you can try; Remember: Sweat is a bodily fluid
    • Watch what you eat on trips, avoid roadside snacks such as kebabs and pastries as much as you can; Make sure what you eat is prepared under sanitary conditions
    • Visit a health facility anytime you have fever, headache, pain, diarrhea, red eyes rash and vomiting
    • Educate yourself and everyone around you about the virus – You can never know too much and every little bit you do know could be helpful to someone else
    • If you notice symptoms in yourself or someone else, don’t panic and don’t delay; Report to the nearest healthcare facility immediately
    • Do not play with monkeys or baboons
    • Do not eat plums eaten by bats

    Doctors around the world are working on a cure. Meanwhile, be safe. Protect yourself and those around you. Avoid huge crowds of people and don’t go anywhere you don’t need to be. We wish you a nice holiday season. Stay healthy!

    Source: Jovago.com

  • Ebola: Third person dies in Nigeria

    Ebola: Third person dies in Nigeria

    A member of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has become the third person in Nigeria to die of Ebola fever, the body said on Wednesday.

    Jatto Asihu Abdulqudir, 36, a protocol assistant, travelled to an ECOWAS function with Liberian Patrick Sawyer, the man who brought Ebola to Nigeria last month, Reuters reports.

    Abdulqudir had been under quarantine. The country has reported eight cases of Ebola since Sawyer arrived on July 20.

    “The Commission wishes to reassure staff of all Community institutions all over the entire region that it is taking all necessary steps to guarantee their health and safety,” Reuters quoted ECOWAS as saying in a statement.

  • Ebola: Social media and gullible citizenry

    SIR: There is no doubt that the presence of Ebola virus disease in the West African countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Ghana is reaching a pandemic dimension. The panic among Nigerians explains the zeal and enthusiasm with which we embraced the rumour of a preventive therapy in a warm-salt- water bath last Friday. It is difficult to pin-point the exact source of the rumour but the substance of it was so pungent that it was difficult not to give it a thought in practice.

    It is not difficult to fathom why Nigerians fell for the Ebola prevention rumour. In a country where health care delivery system is very poor, where doctors are on strike for months on end and the sick are left to die, where drugs, medical supplies and other medicaments and facilities are in short supply and not affordable where they exist, the thought of a ravaging disease with no sure cure is debilitating and shocking. How ready is Nigeria to deal with the disease should it surface, say in Auchi, Orlu or Gusau?

    It is not enough to seek to quarantine a known Ebola virus disease victim. Such victims, even if we know they would surely die, must be fed, comforted and given a semblance of good treatment by health workers. Which health workers are ready to risk their lives in the face of the rampaging disease?

    It is commendable that some effort is being made in this direction with the new life insurance policy for medical care-givers engaged in the Ebola containment effort. The Edo State government, for example, has already designated medical personnel and facilities for handling Ebola cases should any be found in the state.

    The warm salt water bath hoax not only displayed the gullibility of the citizenry but shows how vulnerable the social media can be in the hands of those who have manipulative tendencies. For example, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media applications and platforms have become tools for blackmail, fraud and the spread of outright lies and falsehood, sometimes against political opponents and competitors.  Some Nigerians, out of frustration, see and use social media only as a platform to hurl insults and abuses at others. This incident has brought to the front burner, the need to regulate the use of social media in Nigeria. Users must take full moral and legal responsibility for what they post particularly with respect to matters concerning the security of lives and property.

    Facebook particularly has become a platform for mudslinging, smear campaign and spread of libellous innuendoes against innocent persons, some of them holding high political, business, traditional or religious positions in the society.  It is a general belief that anything or whatever libellous material that is posted (or published) on Facebook or Twitter is not actionable. It is not so. Such posts may not have been tested in court here yet, but I hold the view that such a test may, as has happened elsewhere

  • Bats at the Villa

    How that the Goodluck Jonathan presidency has declared a national emergency regarding the outbreak of the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), it may be expected that the administration would take certain unusual steps in line with the announcement.

    In particular, to go by a newspaper report by a State House correspondent in Abuja, the government is likely to launch an operation to get rid of the bats that populate the location of Aso Rock Villa, the president’s official base.

    The correspondent said: “One of the animals the Minister of Health mentioned as carriers of Ebola was bat. That also generated another round of fear. Many of the big trees inside the Villa are homes for bats. They fly around the Villa in their thousands. They pass out faeces on cars, leaving the owners with no option than to clean them.”

    He continued: “Journalists called the attention of the minister to this and he was also surprised. He quickly hid his fear and assured the agitated journalists that those concerned will definitely do something about the bats as soon as possible.”

    So, Hardball expects a vigorous effort to make the place inhospitable for bats, but wonders how this will be achieved, considering the information that they are present “in their thousands.”  Given the government’s penchant for governance-by-committees, it won’t be surprising if it sets up yet another committee to tackle the bats.

    Sadly, apart from the unfortunate death of a Nigerian nurse who contracted the disease from the late Liberian diplomat, Patrick Sawyer, whose entry into the country on July 20 triggered the spread of the virus, reports say 177 others are currently under Ebola-related surveillance in the country.  Against this alarming background, it is perhaps understandable that, according to the Aso Rock correspondent, “the spread of the virus was the only item on the agenda” of the August 6 Federal Executive Council meeting chaired by Vice-President Namadi Sambo.   He said: “His boss, Goodluck Jonathan, was at that time in Washington DC for the United States-African Leaders Summit.”

    The correspondent observed that “there is fear in the Vila over the spread of the dreaded Ebola virus.”  According to his report on the meeting, “it all started like a joke with some ministers avoiding handshake with their colleagues, journalists and other government officials for the fear of contracting the disease.” He said of the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu: “Apart from regular washing of hands with soap, the minister also encouraged citizens to cultivate the habit of using hand sanitisers. He said he had his own bottle of sanitiser inside his car.”  He then said of the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku: “At that point, Maku dipped his hand into the pocket of his agbada and brought out a bottle of sanitiser. To demonstrate it, he and Chukwu rubbed their hands with the substance.”

    Now, back to the business of battling the bats and sending them packing from the Villa – supposing this is accomplished by whatever means, would it guarantee an Ebola-free Villa? Speaking of bats, what about the possibility of “human bats”, with the implication of spreading the virus, among other things?   By way of information, there is a mysterious creature called the Humanoid Bat, also known as Human Bat or Bat-Thing, which is believed to be either a human that had evolved into a bat-like creature or the other way round. What if such a creature can be found in the corridors of power?

     

     

     

     

  • ‘Our Girls’; Lagos-Ibadan 9 hrs; ‘No Shaking’, Ebola & ‘Ebata’; Failed ‘Political Class’ of 1999-2014! Osun!

    ‘Our Girls’; Lagos-Ibadan 9 hrs; ‘No Shaking’, Ebola & ‘Ebata’; Failed ‘Political Class’ of 1999-2014! Osun!

    Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15. And now we have girl-child bombers. Are they forced to act under threats to their families or school friends. Where is the world going?

    Lagos-Ibadan took five hours last Tuesday morning due to inability of the contractors in providing adequately wide two easily motorable lanes, not ‘one and a half’ during construction work. Simply pouring gravel on holes and over the major muddy areas will keep traffic moving. It took longer – nine hours – last Saturday which is 10 kilometres per hour courtesy of both Convention and Contractor failures. Why must Nigerians suffer extreme torture in order to ‘smile’ to a new expressway?

    Today we face Ebola and have ‘No Shaking’, hugging, sneezing or close contact with sick people until Ebola is excluded from the diagnosis. We must add ‘Ebata’ meaning careful with your shoes, especially in unhygienic markets where other people’s urine, faecal matter and other secretions are dispersed freely on the ground and all kinds of ‘water’ including gutter and rain puddle water is used to wash vegetables and keep them looking ‘fresh’. Have you seen the bread hawkers blowing and dusting bread with foam before inserting it into the cellophane bag, and who blows the husks off groundnuts before forcing them into groundnut bottles? How sick is the person in the backroom who sends the child or youth to the market or street?

    This is not alarmist but cautionary. The Ebola virus does not live long outside the body and transmission is prevented by simple hand-washing with detergents and antiseptic washes like bleach and soaking suspected clothing in bleach but if two highly trained Americans can get it so can we. ‘Caution, care, cleanliness, contact reduction & cellphone,’ are the watchwords with reduction in physical contacts by increased cellphone use. Gloves and masks are essential if one is in direct contact.

    It is now that Nigerians will understand the persistent clamour for adequate sanitation. Toilets are ‘conveniences’ because locked or absent toilets are a crime, not an inconvenience. Running water and toilets are huge factors in preventing Ebola but many more will die ‘unsung and silently’ of ‘common’ typhoid than will ever die of Ebola. Are we not mumu in Nigeria? We shout ‘Ebola’ even though we live and die with typhoid and unsanitary situations everywhere. Foreigners do not die of typhoid any more. Running water and sanitation in schools and offices are not ‘dividends of democracy’ but ‘Demands of Democracy and Civilisation’.

    The ‘Citizens/Politicians Charter Or Principle’ is not about good quality contract works, fine public buildings, more well equipped schools, water running everywhere, a clean attractive environments, more tax, better health facilities, better roads, more arrests for out-of-school hawkers or even more toilets. These are subtitles under the general International Political Science heading of ‘Civilisation or Development Agendas’. These ‘achievements’ are not nuclear physics but a United Nations Millennium Development Goals examination or test which Nigerian politicians have repeatedly failed. They have failed all the sloganized ‘For All’ yardsticks in the last 50 years: ‘Housing For All, Food For All, Education For All, Polio Plus For All, 10,000Mw For All’-now just ‘Little or Nothing For All’.

    The Citizens/Politicians Charter Or Principle’ is about non-violence and calculating how much is spent in terms of total funds expended on trailer-loads of rice, cooking oil, sewing machines, motorcycles, grinding machines, keke NAPEP, and even ‘free or nearly free’ medical services handed out by First Lady NGOs and politicians and foreign based Nigerian medical ‘Missions’. Except for some of the ‘Medical Mission Outreaches’, every kobo of these services, and equipment comes from the government purse and through contractors forced to ‘be grateful’ and ‘support politicians’. Much of the money used is actual political ‘legalised theft’ masquerading or hidden in the budget as hyper-inflated ‘Salaries and Perks’, SAPing Nigeria dry. The people have learnt to take ‘freebees’ from all parties against the rainy day of ‘democracy draught’.

    Calculate how much money is held back by politicians’ ‘Constituency Projects’. People have noticed this accounting anomaly and demand more ‘upfront’. The people have no voice except ‘the vote’, manipulated or not. The method of ‘belly infrastructure’ is not a new creation but merely the mega-manifestation of chronic hunger from political failure. Now ‘Rice is My Price’,’ ‘I Don’t Believe Any Of You’, ‘Hunger Management- Prevention Is Better Than Cure’ or ‘A Bag Of Rice Goes A Long Way’ the manifestation of ‘I-Am-Tired-Of-Waiting’, ‘What Is In It For Me Now, Today?’ The voter is a shareholder ‘selfishly’ or perhaps ‘wisely’ demanding something now as he sees politicians getting richer while he gets poorer.

    This apparent greed by the citizens is consequent upon the vicious assault on them by malicious ‘manner-less’ arrogant seizures of wares and motorcycle and vehicle, shop closures, bulldozing of houses, disappearing good and wares -officially confiscated but actually stolen by government officials – and Internally Generated Revenue drives. Add to these maliciously high government charges, four year backdated high rates, for everything exemplified by retired citizens being forced by circumstances to take on tenants to help pay ever-increasing rates and taxes often without a pension paid as and when due.

    Congratulations to the State of Osun for the ‘relatively non-violent’ return of Governor Rauf Aregbesola. How ‘pure’ and non-violent were the elections in Ekiti and Osun? Progress at last, perhaps! But should democracy cost so much money, and how much was spent in Osun?

  • Africa as Ebola’s Paradise

    Africa as Ebola’s Paradise

    Its recent outbreak in some West African countries may not have initially been accorded much attention, but today, as a result of the havoc it has so far created and the ease as well as the rapidity of infection, everybody is now on his toes across the globe. Now, Ebola has suddenly assumed the status of the fastest-growing killer virus in the world. And to affirm this horrible and disturbing status, last Friday, health experts declared the Ebola epidemic an international health emergency that requires a coordinated global approach.

    At the moment, Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and lately, Nigeria are battling the deadly virus, which has defied any known cure. So far, the virus is believed to have infected at least 1,779 people, killing 961 or more, thereby making it the worst outbreak in the four-decade history of tracking the disease. According to the World Health Organisation, WHO, “the possible consequences of further international spread are particularly serious in view of the virulence of the virus, the intensive community and health facility transmission patterns, and the weak health systems in the currently affected and most at-risk countries”.

    The history of the disease is well known. Unfortunately, since it was first recognized in 1976, all the 18 outbreaks so far recorded occurred in Africa alone. Ebola may be a native of Africa but now the virus is threatening to go global and, by declaring it an international public health emergency, it shows how seriously WHO is taking the current outbreak. But tough statements, definitely, won’t save lives. Perhaps, what should really worry all of us now as the battle against the virus rages, are the words of Peter Piot, the scientific adventurer who discovered the virus: “We shouldn’t forget that this is a disease of poverty, of dysfunctional health systems and of distrust”.

    In 1976, Piot, a 27-year-old medical school graduate training as a clinical microbiologist, undertook a voyage of discovery to the then Zaire, where, out of sheer determination, he ventured into the thick forest in one of the remotest areas of the country and unearthed the disease. Piot is now 65 years old. It’s been 38 years since the first outbreak and the world is now experiencing its worst Ebola epidemic ever. At the last count, the disease has reared its ugly head in four West African countries of Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Out of these, Nigeria has been least affected, recording fewer deaths. Unlike in the past when the outbreak is confined to only one country, the current situation is unprecedented as the spread of the disease across four countries is making it more complicated to deal with than ever before.

    As Piot rightly observed and I agree with him, “this is a disease of poverty, of dysfunctional health systems and of distrust”. The current Ebola’s spread in West Africa is a reminder of the vast development needs that persist in some of the region’s poorest countries despite claim to rapid economic growth and investment. The vast majority of Africans live miserably in slums and squalor. Africa faces endemic poverty, food insecurity and pervasive underdevelopment, with almost all the countries lacking the human, economic and institutional capacities to effectively develop and manage their water resources sustainably. As a result of this, a large number of countries on the continent still face huge challenge in attempting to achieve the United Nations water-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Although the crucial role of water in accomplishing the continent’s development goals is widely recognized, various governments on the African continent seem not to be moved by the appalling living standard of their people both in the urban and rural areas. Thus, clean water becomes a scarce commodity.

    Besides, Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s poorest and least developed region, with half its population living on less than a dollar a day. About two-thirds of its countries rank among the lowest in the Human Development Index. A recent report by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UNDESA, gave an analysis of data from 35 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, representing 84% of the region’s population, showing significant differences between the poorest and richest fifths of the population in both rural and urban areas. According to the report, “over 90% of the richest quintile in urban areas use improved water sources, and over 60% have piped water on premises. In rural areas, piped-in water is non-existent in the poorest 40% of households, and less than half of the population use any form of improved source of water”.

    The report stated that despite efforts and approaches to extend and sustain water, sanitation and hygiene systems and services continue to suffer leading to different health complications in Africa as a whole, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, thereby causing avoidable deaths. “The water and sanitation position in West/Central Africa is of particular urgency, as the region has the highest under-five mortality rate of all developing regions: 191 child deaths per 1,000 live births”. This is underscored by recurrent outbreaks of cholera in both urban and rural areas, a situation that equally underlines the poor state of this region’s basic living conditions. This is a serious concern because of the associated massive health burden, as many people who lack basic sanitation engage in unsanitary activities like poor solid waste and waste water disposal, open defecation and other dirty habits. The practice of open defecation that is rampant in Africa is widely believed to be the primary cause of faecal oral transmission of disease with children being the most vulnerable.

    As if all these are not enough, there is also rapid and almost uncontrollable population growth and rural-urban migration. Despite the efforts of some Sub-Saharan African countries and cities to expand basic services and improve urban housing conditions, rapid and unplanned urban growth has increased the number of settlements on unstable, disaster-prone and high-risk land where diseases and other phenomena disasters with devastating consequences are prevalent. Among developing regions, Sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to have the highest prevalence of urban slums and it is expected to double to around 400 million by 2020. Again, this rising population is driving demand for water and accelerating the degradation of water resources in many countries on the continent.

    Africa has joined India and China as the third region of the world to reach a population of one billion people, and it is expected to double this by 2050, the UN says. By then, there will be three times as many people living in Africa’s cities, and the continent that had fewer than 500,000 urban dwellers in 1950 may have 1.3 billion. The breakneck transformation of a rural population into a predominantly urban one is neither good nor bad on its own, but the issue is that African countries should plan their cities better, to avoid mega-slums and vast areas of deprivation developing across the continent. This is because, in most slums in Africa, basic amenities like potable water, quick disposal of garbage, sanitation facilities and toilets are not available. People in slums face many battles. Besides poverty, the health situation is very bad. Since slums are considered illegal, the government feels no obligation to provide water and proper sanitation to slum dwellers. This high density and over-population means viruses and diseases can spread easily and cause epidemics. And when people are ill, there are not enough health services, doctors, nurses and medicines available for them, or even if these are available, people often lack the money to pay.

    The sickening living conditions in many African countries may not have attracted much attention from the global community all this while. However, the ravaging Ebola virus that is currently knocking at the doorstep of everybody has, once more, forced global attention on Africa. With the experience of Nigeria, where a Patrick Sawyer, an American-Liberian diplomat, imported Ebola into the country from Liberia, the whole world has suddenly woken up from slumber to the stark reality that the entire global community is at the risk of contacting the deadly virus. What this calls for is the need for global cooperation and strategy to combat the recalcitrant disease. Not rhetoric. Not empty promises!

  • UN praises Nigeria for curtailing virus spread

    UN praises Nigeria for curtailing virus spread

    The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has hailed the Federal Government for curtailing the spread of the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

    UNFPA’s Assistant Country Representative Osareti Adori spoke yesterday in Lagos at the opening of a five-day training workshop on Minimum Intervention Service Package for Traumatised Women and Children, organised by the Lagos State Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (WAPA) in Agege.

    Adori said government at all levels had shown commitment to fighting the scourge and ensure that the disease does not spread across the country.

    The UN official was optimistic that the synergy among the three tiers of government and the massive public advocacy would help the nation to win the war and prevent further casualties.

    He said: “What is important is the will. For the first time in a long time, I’ve not seen this country take so serious any issue like the Ebola issue, at the federal and state levels. I see a strong will to contain this situation and, where there is a will, there is a way.

    “This thing happened just about three weeks ago. But if you look at what they have done now, compared to where we are coming from, I would think that if the momentum continues, with the assistance of the international community, in a short while, we would be able to contain the Ebola virus.”

    On the training workshop, Adori said participants will be tutored on how to offer assistance to women and children during emergency situations.

    He added that the UNFPA was partnering the Lagos State Government to ensure that succour was provided to such victims.

  • Ebola: Second American infected

    •Liberian president orders new measures

    A second American aid worker in Liberia has tested positive for Ebola, according to the Christian humanitarian group she works for.

    Nancy Writebol is employed by Serving in Mission, or SIM, in Liberia and was helping the joint SIM/Samaritan’s Purse team that is treating Ebola patients in Monrovia, according to a Samaritan’s Purse statement.

    Writebol, who serves as SIM’s personnel coordinator, has been living in Monrovia with her husband, David, according to SIM’s website. The Charlotte, North Carolina, residents have been in Liberia since August 2013, according to the blog Writebols2Liberia. They have two adult children.

    On Saturday, Samaritan’s Purse announced that American doctor Kent Brantly had become infected. The 33-year-old former Indianapolis resident had been treating Ebola patients in Monrovia and started feeling ill, spokeswoman Melissa Strickland said. Once he started noticing the symptoms last week, Brantly isolated himself.

    Brantly, the medical director for Samaritan Purse’s Ebola Consolidated Case Management Center in Monrovia, has been in the country since October, Strickland said.

    “When the Ebola outbreak hit, he took on responsibilities with our Ebola direct clinical treatment response, but he was serving in a missionary hospital in Liberia prior to his work with Ebola patients,” she said.

    Health officials say the Ebola outbreak, centered in West Africa, is the deadliest ever.

    As of July 20, some 1,093 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia are thought to have been infected by Ebola since its symptoms were first observed four months ago, according to the World Health Organization.

    Testing confirmed the Ebola virus in 786 of those cases; 442 of those people died.

    Of the 1,093 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, 660 people have died.

    There also are fears the virus could spread to Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria.

    Last week, a Liberian man hospitalized with Ebola in Lagos died, Nigerian Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said.

    Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria, has a population of more than 20 million.

    The man arrived at Lagos airport on July 20 and was isolated in a local hospital after showing symptoms associated with the virus. He told officials he had no direct contact with anyone with the virus nor had he attended the burial of anyone who died of Ebola.

    Confirmation of the death in Lagos came after news that a doctor who has played a key role in fighting the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone is infected with the disease, according to that country’s Ministry of Health.

    Dr. Sheik Humarr Khan is being treated by the French aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres — also known as Doctors Without Borders — in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, agency spokesman Tim Shenk said.

    Before falling ill, Khan had been overseeing Ebola treatment and isolation units at Kenema Government Hospital, about 185 miles east of the capital, Freetown.

    Ebola typically kills 90% of those infected, but the death rate in this outbreak has dropped to roughly 60% because of early treatment.

    Officials believe the Ebola outbreak has taken such a strong hold in West Africa because of the proximity of the jungle — where the virus originated — to Conakry, Guinea, which has a population of 2 million.

    Because symptoms don’t immediately appear, the virus can easily spread as people travel around the region. Once infected with the virus, many people die in an average of 10 days as the blood fails to clot and hemorrhaging occurs.

    The disease isn’t contagious until symptoms appear. Symptoms include fever, headache and fatigue. At that point, the Ebola virus is spread via bodily fluids.

    Health workers are at especially high risk, because they are in close contact with infected people and their bodily fluids. Adding to the danger, doctors may mistake the initial stages of an Ebola infection for another, milder illness.

    Liberia president orders new  measures

    Liberia’s president has closed all but three land border crossings, restricted public gatherings and quarantined communities heavily affected by the Ebola outbreak in the West African nation.President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf described the measures late Sunday after the first meeting of a new taskforce she created and is chairing to contain the disease, which has killed 129 people in the country and more than 670 across the region.A top Liberian doctor working at Liberia’s largest hospital died on Saturday, and two American aid workers have fallen ill, underscoring the dangers facing those charged with bringing the outbreak under control.Last week a Liberian official flew to Nigeria via Lome, Togo and died of the disease at a Lagos hospital.

    The fact that the official, Patrick Sawyer, was able to board an international flight despite being ill raised fears that the disease could spread beyond the three countries already affected – Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.There is no known cure for Ebola, which begins with symptoms including fever and sore throat and escalates to vomiting, diarrhea and internal bleeding. The disease spreads through direct contact with blood and other bodily fluids as well as indirect contact with “environments contaminated with such fluids,” according to the World Health Organization.”No doubt, the Ebola virus is a national health problem,” Sirleaf said.

  • Ivory Coast blocks refugees amid Ebola fears

    Sierra Leone has been hit by Ebola, along with Guinea and Liberia

    Ivory Coast has blocked 400 refugees who fled to Liberia from returning home because of fears they could spread the Ebola virus, a UN official has said.

    The decision violated domestic and international law, the official added.

    Ivory Coast said it could not allow the refugees in because of the Ebola “pandemic” in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

    The virus has now killed 603 people in the three states, with 68 deaths reported in the last week, WHO said.

    This is the worst outbreak the world has ever seen.

    There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola, which spreads through contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids.

    UN refugee agency official Mohamed Toure said Ivory Coast had acted “unacceptably” by turning away a convoy of refugees at the border with Liberia.

    The agency had offered to carry out medical screening of the refugees, but Ivorian officials still refused, he said.

    The group had fled to Liberia during the 2010-2011 conflict that hit Ivory Coast after then-President Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept defeat in elections.

    Ivorian government spokesman Bruno Kone defended the decision to block the refugees from entering.

    “Everyone needs to show some understanding,” he is quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

    “We face the greatest pandemic our region has seen for a long time. We cannot be lax in this area,” he said.

    The World Health Organization (WHO) said 85 new cases had been recorded in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia between 8 July and 12 July.

    Sierra Leone recorded the highest number of deaths – 52. Liberia reported 13 deaths and Guinea three, WHO said.

    The figures include confirmed, probable and suspected cases of Ebola, it added.

    WHO spokesman Dan Epstein said it would probably take several months to “get a grip” on the epidemic.

    “People are isolated, they’re afraid, they’re scared,” he said.

  • Sultan warns Muslims on bush meat

    Sultan warns Muslims on bush meat

    The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar lll, on Tuesday warned the Muslim community against the consumption of monkeys and bush meat to avoid contracting the dreaded Ebola virus.

    Abubakar noted that since it was first confirmed medically that the disease was discovered in monkeys and fruit bats, it would be reasonable for Muslims to avoid such, including other bush meat.

    A statement on behalf of the Sultan by the JNI’s Secretary-General, Dr. Khalid Abubakar, in Kaduna on Tuesday said, “As confirmed by medical experts, the disease was first discovered in monkeys and contacted by those who eat monkeys and other sources of bush meat. Alas, in Islam eating of monkeys had already been discouraged (Makruh), according to many scholars of Islamic jurisprudence.

    “Thus, we should continue to uphold this verdict as it also serves as a preventative measure.”

    He also urged Muslims to abide by all health tips for the prevention of the disease seriously, noting that the culture of personal hygiene as well as proper sanitation must always be emphasised

    He said Islam is a religion of cleanliness, adding that as reported in a sound Hadith, “Cleanliness is half of faith.”

    “Nigeria has now joined the league of West African nations with the deadly Ebola outbreak. Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia were reported as taking the lead. The Nigeria Ebola case was first reported with the arrival of a Liberian, Mr. Patrick Sawyer, with the disease in Lagos and subsequently died at a Lagos hospital,” the statement added.